“The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.“
Hubert H. Humphrey
Speech, November 4, 1977
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
What are they so afraid of?
Apparently, the Lilith Fair announced the following on Monday:$1 from every Lilith ticket sold will be donated to a local charity in each of the 36 cities the festival visits. Fans were asked to help by voting for the charity in their city that they thought Lilith should support.
The following info was found on the Facebook page "Lilith Fair: No money for crisis pregnancy centers!" Site quotes are in italics.
On the Minneapolis voting page, the Metro Women's Center is described as follows: "To actively promote and maintain the sanctity of human life through educating women and the community at large about pregnancy alternatives so that informed decisions concerning the outcome of pregnancy may be made. We desire to do this by respecting the lives of both the mother and the child equally. We believe that the answer to a problem or unplanned pregnancy is not to abort the child, but to seek alternatives which allow both parties to live. Since: 1990 http://www.metrowomenscenter.org/ "
The Indianapolis voting page describes Life Centers, an anti-choice CPC which seems to be even less interested in covering up the fact that they do not support choice - "We empower women in unplanned pregnancies to make informed decisions about themselves and their future by offering pregnancy testing, confidential counseling services, information about abortion alternatives, and referrals. Established 1982 http://www.lifecenters.com/ "
Oh, heaven FORBID we actually offer women options beyond killing their children! I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. The pro-choice movement has also been known to oppose things like requiring women view their ultrasound before terminating a pregnancy. Because of course it's just too hard to acknowledge that what they're doing might just be...oh, I don't know, wrong?
In Atlanta, a Beacon of Hope Womens Center, Inc., offers a key component to many CPCs: a free ultrasound accompanied by misleading information about safe and legal abortion procedures. A Beacon of Hope freely admits on their website that,"we do not offer or refer for abortion services." The description on the Lilith Fair voting page reads (without any correction to spacing edits),"A Beacon of Hope is a counseling center for women who have unexpectedly become pregnant. Serviced offered include: Free Pregnancy Testing/Free Limited Ultrasound Testing/Options Counseling/Prenatal Educational Programs/Financial and Medical Assistance for Patients currently in Programming/Housing Placement Referrals/Parenting Classes for Patients in Programming/Mentoring for Patients in Programming/Transportation for Patients currently in Programming to and from needed doctor visits Since: 1999 http://www.abeaconofhope.com/ "
The Metro Women's Center and Life Centers self-describe as Crisis Pregnancy Centers - one of the worst offenders of women's rights.
Wait a minute here. I see free pregnancy testing, all manner of assistance...this is bad for women how?
Crisis Pregnancy Centers are MISLEADING and perpetuate MISINFORMATION to women who are in difficult circumstances. We are concerned that, even through a democratic process such as voting, Lilith is condoning such actions, which stand in direct opposition to a "Celebration of Women."
Women are powerful, wonderful creatures. And while not all women will have children of their own, we all possess that amazing ability to bring forth life. To support alternatives to abortion is to truly celebrate womanhood.
The following info was found on the Facebook page "Lilith Fair: No money for crisis pregnancy centers!" Site quotes are in italics.
On the Minneapolis voting page, the Metro Women's Center is described as follows: "To actively promote and maintain the sanctity of human life through educating women and the community at large about pregnancy alternatives so that informed decisions concerning the outcome of pregnancy may be made. We desire to do this by respecting the lives of both the mother and the child equally. We believe that the answer to a problem or unplanned pregnancy is not to abort the child, but to seek alternatives which allow both parties to live. Since: 1990 http://www.metrowomenscenter.org/ "
The Indianapolis voting page describes Life Centers, an anti-choice CPC which seems to be even less interested in covering up the fact that they do not support choice - "We empower women in unplanned pregnancies to make informed decisions about themselves and their future by offering pregnancy testing, confidential counseling services, information about abortion alternatives, and referrals. Established 1982 http://www.lifecenters.com/ "
Oh, heaven FORBID we actually offer women options beyond killing their children! I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. The pro-choice movement has also been known to oppose things like requiring women view their ultrasound before terminating a pregnancy. Because of course it's just too hard to acknowledge that what they're doing might just be...oh, I don't know, wrong?
In Atlanta, a Beacon of Hope Womens Center, Inc., offers a key component to many CPCs: a free ultrasound accompanied by misleading information about safe and legal abortion procedures. A Beacon of Hope freely admits on their website that,"we do not offer or refer for abortion services." The description on the Lilith Fair voting page reads (without any correction to spacing edits),"A Beacon of Hope is a counseling center for women who have unexpectedly become pregnant. Serviced offered include: Free Pregnancy Testing/Free Limited Ultrasound Testing/Options Counseling/Prenatal Educational Programs/Financial and Medical Assistance for Patients currently in Programming/Housing Placement Referrals/Parenting Classes for Patients in Programming/Mentoring for Patients in Programming/Transportation for Patients currently in Programming to and from needed doctor visits Since: 1999 http://www.abeaconofhope.com/ "
The Metro Women's Center and Life Centers self-describe as Crisis Pregnancy Centers - one of the worst offenders of women's rights.
Wait a minute here. I see free pregnancy testing, all manner of assistance...this is bad for women how?
Crisis Pregnancy Centers are MISLEADING and perpetuate MISINFORMATION to women who are in difficult circumstances. We are concerned that, even through a democratic process such as voting, Lilith is condoning such actions, which stand in direct opposition to a "Celebration of Women."
Women are powerful, wonderful creatures. And while not all women will have children of their own, we all possess that amazing ability to bring forth life. To support alternatives to abortion is to truly celebrate womanhood.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Health care reform
The internet is abuzz with the passing of President Obama's healthcare bill.
I'll say it up front: I am a liberal. I am pleased that Obama actually recognized that we had a problem with healthcare in this country and made moves to fix the problem.
Was this the best way to fix the problem? Well, parts of it will help a lot of people. And Obama, albeit reluctantly, signed an executive order ensuring that federal funding would not be used for abortions, essentially keeping the Hyde Amendment intact. I'm holding him to that :-)
As for the rest? We'll see. Both sides (liberal and conservative) have good points and good reasons to be nervous.
I'll say it up front: I am a liberal. I am pleased that Obama actually recognized that we had a problem with healthcare in this country and made moves to fix the problem.
Was this the best way to fix the problem? Well, parts of it will help a lot of people. And Obama, albeit reluctantly, signed an executive order ensuring that federal funding would not be used for abortions, essentially keeping the Hyde Amendment intact. I'm holding him to that :-)
As for the rest? We'll see. Both sides (liberal and conservative) have good points and good reasons to be nervous.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Stupak and health care
I stand with Stupak. Do you?
Words cannot describe how pleased I am that a Democrat is taking such a strong stance for the unborn. I identify as liberal in *most* other ways, but I cannot stand with my liberal brethren when they take a stand against the unborn.
Cecilia Brown of PLAGAL (Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians) wrote an excellent post on the topic here.
From the article: It is my belief that we should focus on making abortion unthinkable by finding the root causes of abortion and dealing with those issues. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the most common causes are either financial reasons, or that another child would interfere with their work, education, or ability to care for other dependents.
This is why I like groups like Feminists for Life. They believe in eliminating abortion by removing the social and economic inequities that cause women to feel like they have no choice but to kill their children.
Does that make me a socialist? If so I'm not the only one. In 1911, Emma Goldman wrote in Mother Earth: ""The custom of procuring abortions has reached such appalling proportions in America as to be beyond belief...So great is the misery of the working classes that seventeen abortions are committed in every one hundred pregnancies."
Women Deserve Better.
Words cannot describe how pleased I am that a Democrat is taking such a strong stance for the unborn. I identify as liberal in *most* other ways, but I cannot stand with my liberal brethren when they take a stand against the unborn.
Cecilia Brown of PLAGAL (Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians) wrote an excellent post on the topic here.
From the article: It is my belief that we should focus on making abortion unthinkable by finding the root causes of abortion and dealing with those issues. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the most common causes are either financial reasons, or that another child would interfere with their work, education, or ability to care for other dependents.
This is why I like groups like Feminists for Life. They believe in eliminating abortion by removing the social and economic inequities that cause women to feel like they have no choice but to kill their children.
Does that make me a socialist? If so I'm not the only one. In 1911, Emma Goldman wrote in Mother Earth: ""The custom of procuring abortions has reached such appalling proportions in America as to be beyond belief...So great is the misery of the working classes that seventeen abortions are committed in every one hundred pregnancies."
Women Deserve Better.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
today in history
From Executed Today:
Words fail me.
Supposedly the technology got better, but not in enough time for Jimmy Lee Gray in 1983, who spent eight minutes flailing and gasping before dying-from banging his head against the steel pole behind the chair. Or Donald Harding, who in 1992 took eleven minutes to die, gasping, shuddering and desperately making obscene gestures with both strapped-down hands.
Who else used the gas chamber? Nazi Germany, and North Korea.
The gas chamber was last used in the U.S. in 1999, and as of 2009 only five states (Arizona, California, Maryland, Missouri, Wyoming) still have it as a method, with lethal injection available as an alternative in all five states.
On this date in 1955, murderer Gerald Albert Gallego became the first client of Mississippi’s new gas chamber.
It was a botched job, though that didn’t stop Mississippi from retaining the gas chamber into the 1990s.
Gallego coughed, choked, and wheezed on a less than lethal cloud of cyanide poisoning. Finally, after some forty-five minutes while officials feverishly worked to correct the problem, the repairs were completed and Gallego quickly died. An additional step was then added to the required testing of the chamber prior to an execution: an animal, usually a rabbit, would be placed in a cage in the chamber chair and cyanide gas was released to make sure the mixture was sufficiently lethal.
Words fail me.
Supposedly the technology got better, but not in enough time for Jimmy Lee Gray in 1983, who spent eight minutes flailing and gasping before dying-from banging his head against the steel pole behind the chair. Or Donald Harding, who in 1992 took eleven minutes to die, gasping, shuddering and desperately making obscene gestures with both strapped-down hands.
Who else used the gas chamber? Nazi Germany, and North Korea.
The gas chamber was last used in the U.S. in 1999, and as of 2009 only five states (Arizona, California, Maryland, Missouri, Wyoming) still have it as a method, with lethal injection available as an alternative in all five states.
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